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Re: Evolution of the Fundy Tides
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Jan 7, 04:50 EST
From: Frank Reed CT
Date: 2004 Jan 7, 04:50 EST
Trevor K wrote:
"In the past 13 millennia, most coastal and offshore areas in this region
have first moved up and then down, though some have dipped consistently."
I'm glad you looked into this further.
Yes. Over the scale of thousands of years, it's quite complicated. There was once an icecap covering central Maine (as well as the rest of the northeast US). Then there were beaches... ocean beaches (after the ice melted) on the shore of a rapidly rising ocean in what is now far inland Maine. Then the land rebounded and the ocean was pushed back out. And now it's turned again as the weight of the ocean presses down on the continental shelf. For as long as we have historical records --meaning the past 100 to 150 years and in some areas a bit longer than that-- relative sea level has been rising throughout New England and most of the world, too.
By the way, if you're looking for other sources on relative sea level, take a look at the NOS/NOAA web site. There are mountains of tide gauge data for US ports there (including Freeport, Maine on the NB border) and they have included some nice plots of long-term sea level rise. It IS rising. From a century ago, sea level in New England has climbed about a foot. And you can see it in old photos. I remember as a kid wondering how they managed to take all those pictures in the late 19th century at low tide. Now I know.... (ahem.. I should say, now I have a working hypothesis <g>).
A sidenote:
It has become an article of faith in some circles that sea level rise is "anthropogenic" meaning that WE did it by causing global warming. There is scant evidence (next to no evidence) for this in the tide gauge data, but in those very few sites around the world that show any change in rate, it has been converted into a rate of change in the rate of change suggesting ominous events in this century. For some meditations on the questions in this questionable science at a very general level, some of you may enjoy this article by sci-fi author Michael Crichton: http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html (link courtesy of JSW on the Compuserve SciMath Forum).
Frank E. Reed
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois
"In the past 13 millennia, most coastal and offshore areas in this region
have first moved up and then down, though some have dipped consistently."
I'm glad you looked into this further.
Yes. Over the scale of thousands of years, it's quite complicated. There was once an icecap covering central Maine (as well as the rest of the northeast US). Then there were beaches... ocean beaches (after the ice melted) on the shore of a rapidly rising ocean in what is now far inland Maine. Then the land rebounded and the ocean was pushed back out. And now it's turned again as the weight of the ocean presses down on the continental shelf. For as long as we have historical records --meaning the past 100 to 150 years and in some areas a bit longer than that-- relative sea level has been rising throughout New England and most of the world, too.
By the way, if you're looking for other sources on relative sea level, take a look at the NOS/NOAA web site. There are mountains of tide gauge data for US ports there (including Freeport, Maine on the NB border) and they have included some nice plots of long-term sea level rise. It IS rising. From a century ago, sea level in New England has climbed about a foot. And you can see it in old photos. I remember as a kid wondering how they managed to take all those pictures in the late 19th century at low tide. Now I know.... (ahem.. I should say, now I have a working hypothesis <g>).
A sidenote:
It has become an article of faith in some circles that sea level rise is "anthropogenic" meaning that WE did it by causing global warming. There is scant evidence (next to no evidence) for this in the tide gauge data, but in those very few sites around the world that show any change in rate, it has been converted into a rate of change in the rate of change suggesting ominous events in this century. For some meditations on the questions in this questionable science at a very general level, some of you may enjoy this article by sci-fi author Michael Crichton: http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html (link courtesy of JSW on the Compuserve SciMath Forum).
Frank E. Reed
[X] Mystic, Connecticut
[ ] Chicago, Illinois
